My workouts usually consist of a 70-30 ratio of strength and hypertrophy and i try to kill myself in the gym every time but theres a problem, i dont feel anything except my quads and hamstrings (consistently). I dont feel the muscle thats supposed to be working, i dont feel sore, i dont feel the pump and so on. I can hear frequently that Scott and other guys say stuff like "you should really feel the lats in this exercise" (or whatever muscle) and i get confused because i dont feel anything, in any body part and i think that im doing something wrong. I was training hard as it is and i've been adding weight and seeing a bit of gains but i thought that i still might not be working out hard enough so i started doing everything to failiure and doing drop sets a lot more and i still dont feel anything. I experimented with different exercises and found that some work better than others, for instance i was really disappointed with the regular flat barbell bench press and i switched it with decline dumbbell bench press and felt more activation in the chest immediately (and it also helped even out the strength in my arms, since i noticed that my left arm was giving out sooner than my right arm) and even got soreness in the chest for the first time for like 2 days but then when i went to train chest for the second time (with those new exercises) i started to not feel anything again. The biggest problem though are the lats, i wasnt feeling them at all and i was like "fuck it, i'll just train the lats in their every function as much as i can" so i started doing 4 sets of pull ups, cable pulldowns, dumbbell pullovers, straight arm cable pulldowns, t bar rows and one arm dumbbell rows and i still didnt feel ANYTHING. Im pretty sure its not the form since i literally found every single piece of advice out there regarding form and put them to practice and didnt feel any change. So, my question is: why does this happen? Am i doing something wrong, or still not working out hard enough? Maybe i should just go super saiyan and train until my muscles tear in half lol.

Well, have you really concetrated on your mind-muscle connection @Asbestos?

Believe it or not lifting weights isn't just about going to the gym, picking up the barbell and doing your reps. You actually have to think about what you are doing, and engage the muscle you are working. Try flexing your muscles at home, get used to tensing and flexing individual parts of your body. Then, when you get to the gym, inbetween sets try flexing the muscle you are working, be it chest, back, legs, arms, whatever. That way when you get back into the exercise, you might be able to engage it better and 'feel it' more.

The reason you probably didn't get sore the second time you did that chest routine is because after doing it once, your body was ready for it again. You tend to get DOMS when you put your body under some new sort of strain that it isn't used to. Once it gets used to it, it doesn't always respond by getting sore. That doesn't mean it's not growing though - check this out:

And maybe you're not a guy who responds that well to high volume workouts...what other methods of training have you tried? 5x5s? 1RMs? Regular sets of 8-10 reps?

Jordan

Jordan's all up on it! It sounds like you are expecting to constantly get a burn, be sore for the next few days but that's not always the case. Being sore only means you worked your body out of its comfort zone (inflamation and slight muscle tear), which is usually done by changing up a workout, more reps, more weight, ect. It is a good thing but does not determine a better workout one way or the other. After the first week of a routine you will not get sore as much or often until you make a big change to your routine. Mind muscle connection like Jordan said is what you need to work on and it sounds like you have a little trouble with that also so here's an easy way to look at it. Try concentration curls which is a good example. the whole time you are curling you are squeezing and flexing your bicep while you slowly make the motions under control. Chest flyes in a slow controlled movement flex your chest as you bring the dumbbells together and squeeze your chest at the end. If you have trouble with this you may be using too much weight making you concentrate more on just finishing the rep and not keeping the movement under control and squeezing the muscles.

I agree with the others here.
And as @adawg38 already said, tempo can make the hell of a difference when it comes to mind muscle connection.
If you really have a lot issues to find the 'connection' to your muscles, you can also try to snap a finger at the target muscle, or pinch it.

Do that always directly before you work that muscle.

Your muscles react to phyiscal interaction such as pinches and snaps and contract, even if only for a splitsecond.

This way you can train them to be engaged by 'waking' them up with a snap :) And always focus your mind on them, try to feel and 'steer' them rather than just trying to mindlessly pull the weight into a certain direction.

As far as the soreness goes, the others are right too. I barely ever get sore anymore. Unless i step things up a lot, or change a lot. The body adjusts to workouts.

And sometimes i feel a good workout rather by having the feeling that the muscles are slightly 'pumped up' in size , rather than that they would hurt or be sore.

So yes, you don't need always to be in pain just to have the evidence for having had a good workout =)

Well i do mostly low volume - high weight, but i can try squeezing harder. Thanks for the advice guys. :)

You ought to go in gym and do a couple sets of 30. Fast tempo but controlled (use muscle not momentum). If you are using low reps and not high reps you won't feel muscle and certainly won't feel pump. Once you wake muscles up then do main movement concentrating on muscles you are trying to work. After 20 years of not using most of my muscles, my glutes and lats were asleep, using high rep sets have helped me make that mind muscle connection on everything but especially lats and glutes.